Perez feeling prepared as Force India complete 128 laps

Sahara Force India’s Sergio Perez is happy with the performance of the VJM10 over the course of the pre-season testing and believes that the team are in a good place for the start of the season.

The Mexican completed 128 laps on the final day of testing in Barcelona with a fastest time of 1:20.116, good enough for seventh position on the timesheets.

“I think we are well prepared for Melbourne.” said Perez. “We’ve been reliable this week and hit our targets in a lot of areas – especially in terms of getting miles on the car. We’ve learned a huge amount and understood where we can improve.

“Today was my busiest day in the car so far doing a bit of everything – short runs, long runs and set-up work to understand where we can find more performance from this car. Covering 128 laps is a positive way to end our pre-season and I’m really looking forward to Melbourne.”

Credit: Octane Photographic Ltd.

Chief Race Engineer Tom McCullough echoed the thoughts of Perez, “Overall, it has been a successful second week of testing. We showed good reliability and were able to complete the vast majority of a very ambitious test programme.

“This leaves us with a good understanding of the VJM10 and the 2017 tyres. Testing slightly later in the year resulted in more representative track temperatures and that has been helpful. Today we followed a similar programme to yesterday, with performance running in the morning and long runs in the afternoon, to ensure that Sergio is fully prepared for Melbourne.“

While the on-track testing may be over until the cars hit the track in Australia in just under two weeks time, there is still plenty to be done.

“There’s a lot of data for us to digest and we will be working hard between now and Melbourne to maximise what we have for the first few races of the year. To design a completely new car and run it as successfully as we did in these two weeks with just some minor teething problems is a big achievement for our team and we’re confident we are ready for the season.” added McCullough.